


Ode to You

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Female Character of Color, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4649973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even false stars shine. Some closure for the other side at the end of the Citadel DLC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ode to You

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A small attempt to give two minor characters a bit more significance. Takes place at the tail-end of the Citadel DLC.
> 
> Warning(s): Blood, injuries, vague mentions of death, and canon divergence/expansion, especially for one Mr. Leng.

“How’d I do?”

She lies in the confined, forgotten corner of an alley, her broken body the epicenter of the small crater she made with her fall. She was smart, angling herself the way she did as she came down, so that she would land in a place far from curious, potentially horrified eyes. She was Commander Shepard, after all, and Commander Shepard was nothing if not efficient.

Kai Leng approaches her slowly, traversing a ground littered with dust and debris, his eyes on the muted shine of her armor. She doesn’t look at him when he kneels at her side; her dark eyes are on the artificial sky above, her expression serene, such a contrast to the blood dotting her face, staining the deep brown of her skin. He lifts a gauntleted finger and brushes her jaw, removing a speck of dirt. She glances at him. “Asked you a question,” she says, and he smiles.

She never was patient.

“How was she?” he asks instead of answering. She frowns.

“Already told you.”

“That was before,” he retorts, his finger finding her face again to scrub at the dried blood on her cheek. “I imagine your opinion to be rather different, now.”

Her gaze returns to the sky. Silence for what seems like minutes as he gently cleans her face, before she finally opens her full mouth.

“I like her.”

He smiles again, a touch sardonic. “Everyone does.”

She’s up there. Miles up, standing amidst the wreck of the _Normandy’s_ cargo bay, she’s getting her bearings back, putting her hand to the back of her head, cracking her neck, and grimacing at the sound. Her team stands with her, no doubt, still shell-shocked at what they’ve witnessed but not enough to forgo their care. As Brooks is escorted off the ship, they’ve sat her down on a crate and begun tending to her wounds, the deep, sizzling gash on her thigh, the three broken ribs, and the huge, concussion-inducing knot on her forehead. He knows, because the same injuries show themselves on the woman lying prone before him. That’s what happens when two tiny superpowers unleash their all on each other. No biotics, no tech, just hard-earned muscle and a determination large enough to put down a Reaper. That’s all she’s ever seemed to need to get the job done. He knows that, too, remembers it. Over five years ago, it’s what made half of him want her, and the other half hate her.

But this isn’t about him.

“Do you need anything?” he asks. She glances at him again. Grins.

“Does it look like I need anything?”

An ambulance, a hospital, a blood transfusion and a body cast. He takes in the mass of crimson painting the concrete under her head; the shadows hide what is obviously a fatal wound. He meets her gaze again. “Maybe a pillow.”

She laughs, or tries to. Somehow, around the blood gurgling at the back of her throat, it still manages to sound sweet, joyful. Her eyes glimmer with the same shine of the stars blinking into existence overhead. False, fabricated, but no less beautiful. She keeps going until her labored breath forces her to stop. The smile, though, remains. “Good one,” she says, as if her laughter didn’t already confirm it. He shakes his head with a smirk and moves his finger to her mouth to wipe away the trickle that formed at its corner.

“You always did like bad jokes.”

“You should tell me another one after you answer my question.”

“What question?” He knows what question.

“You know what question,” she confirms, a ‘duh’ clear in her nuance. His smirk widens.

“How do you think you did?”

“Based off what? The number of shattered bones, or the gaping hole in my head?” She huffs amusedly and seems to relax, her eyes going back to the sky. “I wasn’t supposed to like her.”

“It’s as I said,” he comments, pulling his hand back. “Most people tend to.”

“I doubt that includes the folks trying to kill her.”

“Don’t count on it,” he returns, half-flippantly. “She doesn’t know it, but she has charm in spades.” _You both do._

“Eh,” she says, her way of deeming the comment untrue. Just like _she_ did when he told her the same. He shakes his head again, but listens when she continues. “You think she’s okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” he answers with surety. “A few days without bullets pinging off her armor, and she’ll be back to saving us all.”

“Cerberus tech at its finest.” She blinks, twitches as if she wants to lift her hand and rub at the bridge of her nose. Before he can stop himself, he does it for her. “Guess even _it_ can’t fix everything, though.”

He pulls his hand away again and looks at her. The puddle around her head has stymied, her body’s vain attempt to stem the damage. “No.”

“Good.”

He thinks about leaving her be in the lengthy silence that follows. He almost does, until he remembers something else. It’s confirmed when she starts murmuring lowly to herself, little snatches of words that start to sound like lyrics the longer he listens. It makes something strange prick distantly in his chest, and he shifts from his kneel to settle against the tiny alley’s wall. “Why did you let go?” he asks, interrupting her for reasons he refuses to acknowledge.

The song stops. For a moment, he thinks she’s fallen unconscious. Then, “…she called me by our first name.”

He blinks once behind his visor, but doesn’t reply. She doesn’t seem to notice. She lets out another laugh, softer than the one before, and looks back up to the stars.

“While we were dueling it out. Thought she was playing me, the way she kept looking me in the eye and talking like she wanted me to understand something. And then we were hanging out that hatch, and her crew caught her and she caught me, and she said it. ‘I get it. Neo, I get it. It’s okay.’” She takes in a breath, shaky with something he can’t confirm. “And it clicked. This entire damn time, I’ve been fighting this feeling of _wrong_ ness, like I shouldn’t be here, trying to live a life that isn’t really mine to have.” She takes another labored breath. Inside his visor, the monitor for her heartrate beeps twice, a warning. “The same way _she’s_ been feeling since Torfan.”

He still doesn’t speak. Something in him tells him he should, that distant prick in his chest pricking a little harder, a little less far away. He shoves it down again.

“Sucks, doesn’t it, feeling like you don’t have a place in a space this big? Feeling like you don’t have a _right_ to have a place in a space this big.” She chuckles. “Not one person has called me ‘Neo’ since I’ve been alive. Commander, yeah, and Shepard. Fucking Butcher of Torfan. But never ‘Neo’.” She chuckles again. “ _She_ got it. Of course she did. How could she not? And just like that, I knew that in order for her to get better, for _us_ to get better, I couldn’t be around.”

The heart monitor beeps again. In the same moment, her breath labors further, puffing out her mouth with obvious difficulty. It doesn’t stop her. Nothing stops her. “That’s okay, right?” she asks, her eyes, hazier now, finding him in the darkness. “For me to say ‘us’?” She swallows. “Just to belong somewhere, y’know?”

He shouldn’t be lingering here. He was to come, ensure her failure, then leave to report. Not stay and indulge – no, _comfort_ – someone who for all intents and purposes is an abomination.

He looks into her eyes, black-brown and shining like stars. He liked those eyes, once upon a time. Loved them, he would have said, if he felt worthy of saying so.

The last time they truly looked at him, it was with betrayal and the blood of one hundred comrades on their hands. It was with acceptance and that same, unbeatable determination. _I get it. Kai, I get it. It’s okay._

It wasn’t, and the day he saw the glimmer in those eyes lessened, _weakened_ to near nothing because of what _he_ did, he said ‘yes’ to the Illusive Man.

He’ll kill her one of these days, sooner rather than later. It’s how their story will go, and nothing can change its course.

But…he can do this. For a small handful of seconds, he can be the man he was, and comfort a woman who never should have been.

Abandoning his place against the concrete wall, he returns to kneel by her side. His hands reach for her, and slowly, he lifts her tiny, crumpled form into his arms. Her injuries don’t bother her; the anesthetic built into her skeleton has already deadened most of her nerves, leaving her mercifully numb. One of the few kindnesses the Illusive Man offers to his elite pawns.

Balancing her in his lap and sitting back against the wall, he tucks her head against his shoulder with one hand while the other removes his visor. He feels her eyes on his face even as she sighs, her face nuzzling into his chest. He remembers; she’s always thrived on touch. “Rest,” he murmurs, his fingers pushing her blood-drenched braids away to gently rub at her temples. “You have a place.”

She grins, bloody teeth and all. “Good to know,” she whispers, and then she pushes up with what has to be the last of her strength, and kisses him.

He allows it. He doesn’t know why – yes, he does – but he thinks it helps her, and maybe him, too. It’s beyond proven that they’re kindred, two binary stars locked in the same orbit and unable to escape simply for virtue of being what they are. Close to being ‘right’, but still not quite. Her lips are warm, though, and the heat of his own adds to them. He tastes the remnants of the clotted blood he wiped away earlier, until it disappears entirely and he’s left with only her. Her heart flutters like wings against his chest, and her breath comes deep and slow, deliberate control on her part to make it last. Her eyes are still on him, he feels, ensuring he’s there as her body loses more feeling. Or maybe she’s simply memorizing his face; it’s been so long since she’s seen it.

She’s up there, away from here. Miles away, she rests in Anderson’s old apartment on the Silversun Strip, her wounds tended and her heart heavy but finally, _finally_ healing. Major Alenko’s with her, watching over her, perhaps loving her, perhaps getting up the nerve _to_ love her before it’s too late and he loses his chance for the third time.

It doesn’t matter. Artificial or no, a star is going out tonight. It deserves at least one person’s full attention.

When he pulls away, her heartbeat is harder to detect, but her grin isn’t. Lazy, indulgent, like she’s about to fall into a well-deserved sleep. Her eyes are half-lidded but still looking. “How’d I do?” she mouths. Too little strength for sound. He smirks in a way that he fears is more like a smile.

“Good,” he whispers back. “You did good, Neo.”

Five minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, he exits the alleyway with her limp body still cradled to his chest. A nondescript ship will discreetly pick them up, and from there, she’ll cease to exist as anything but a brief but bright-burning memory to those who witnessed her.

It’s as it should be.


End file.
